Bureau of Justice Statistics releases "Federal Prisoner Statistics Collected under the First Step Act, 2020"

The US Justice Department's Bureau ofJustice Statistics today released this interesting new data report titled "Federal Prisoner Statistics Collected under the First Step Act, 2020."  Despite the year in its title, the report provides data on the federal prison population at the end of 2019 (so before any COVID-era shocks).  Here is how this 19-page report gets started and a few of its "key findings":

The First Step Act of 2018 (FSA) requires the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), through its National Prisoner Statistics program, to collect data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on a number of topics and to report these data annually. BJS is required to report on selected characteristics of prisoners, including marital, veteran, citizenship, and English-speaking status; educational levels; medical conditions; and participation in treatment programs. Also, BJS is required to report some facility-level statistics, such as the number of assaults on staff by prisoners, prisoners’ violations of rules that resulted in time-credit reductions, and selected facility characteristics related to accreditation, on-site health care, remote learning, video conferencing, and costs of prisoners’ phone calls.

The statistics in this report are for calendar year 2019, which represented the first full year under the FSA, and were collected in 2020. Data for 2020 will be available from the BOP in the second half of 2021. Unless otherwise noted, all counts in this report include federal prisoners held in correctional facilities operated either by the BOP or by private companies contracted by the BOP.

Key findings

• The portion of federal prisoners who were the parent, step-parent, or guardian of a minor child (defined as a dependent age 20 or younger by the BOP) grew from 45% to 49% from year-end 2018 to year-end 2019 (table 1).

• On December 31, 2019, a total of 31,458 federal prisoners were non-citizens of the United States (18% of all BOP prisoners), and 21,922 prisoners identified English as their second language (13% of all BOP prisoners). 

• During 2019, a total of 3,791 federal prisoners earned a general-equivalency degree (GED) or other equivalent certificate while in prison. 

• In 2019, there were 386 incidents of prisoners being placed in administrative maximum - segregated housing, the BOP’s most restrictive level of segregated housing. 

• Of the 180 pregnant prisoners in federal custody in 2019, a total of 94 gave birth in custody and 74 were released before giving birth (table 2)....

• While in custody, 116 federal prisoners received medication-assisted treatment for a substance-use disorder in 2019....

• ƒIn 2019, all 122 BOP-operated facilities had video-conferencing capabilities for prisoners to participate in judicial hearings, foreign embassy consultations, reentry-related communications from probation offices, preliminary reentry preparation, disciplinary hearings, and the Institution Hearing Program.

• A total of 89,369 prohibited acts occurred in BOP-operated facilities during 2019, of which 63,025 were committed in medium- or high-security facilities (71%) (table 4).

• A total of 54,848 individual federal prisoners committed the 89,369 prohibited acts (table 5).

• More than half of the individuals who committed prohibited acts in 2019 were age 35 or older (29,175 prisoners or 53%).

• During 2019, there were 1,252 physical assaults on BOP staff by federal prisoners, with 18 of the assaults resulting in serious injury to the staff member (table 7).

• In 2019, a total of 11,491 persons volunteered at BOP-operated facilities (table 8).

• Faith-based programs made up 56% of all BOP recidivism-reduction partnerships in 2019 (table 9).